How to Define Your Brand with Your Website
What comes to your mind when someone mentions “building a brand”? Perhaps building a reputable company? In the words of Jerry McLaughlin, one of the contributors for Forbes magazine: a brand is the picture that customers see when they think of you (or your business). The real question is how do you paint a beautiful picture. Here’s how you could leverage your website to create a powerful brand.
If you think your website is perfect, then you need this guide more than you know. Most of the websites floating around cyberspace are not doing their job. Most of them are ineffective. Chalk this up to approach, design, or whatever you want. The reality is that most of your thoughts on websites are wrong.
Your website, any website actually, has but one goal. That goal is to turn strangers into prospects and turn prospects into customers. That’s it. There is no other goal. If your website doesn’t have a function or generate leads, it’s just a fancy brochure.
Your website isn’t an online business card
This is where most brands get it wrong. Their website looks like an online business card. There’s no headline or call to action. There’s no lead generation method. It’s just a display page that provides no real value and doesn’t tell the brand story well.
Engage them
Your website, like any piece of marketing, should have a strong, attention-grabbing headline. You literally have just a few seconds before someone makes up their mind about staying on your site or clicking away to something else. Have a headline that stops them dead in their tracks and forces them to take notice. Let them know they’ve found what they are looking for. Here is a look at how to write great headlines.
Keep it simple
Google.com is one of the most popular websites of all time, if not the most popular. Why does it work so well? Simplicity. It isn’t giving you hundreds of options. It is giving you two. Search for something or leave. Most websites offer way too many choices for their visitors to think about. Before you pay someone thousands of dollars for some fancy-pants website design with all the bells and whistles, think of Google. Think of the simplicity. The first second it appears too busy and is overwhelming to them, people will leave. Simple works.
Your website should be about getting people to the next step you want them to take: moving them through your funnel and providing value to them every step of the way. If you are attempting to accomplish something more than that, you are wasting opportunity.
You’re losing if you’re not converting
Many a times your website will be the first point of contact someone has with your brand. What kind of impression will it make? Will it make them want to take the next logical step and view you as a solution to their problem? It had better. Everything else is just a waste.
